How Israel Tracked The Top Of The Iranian Regime Has Been Revealed

Israeli intelligence exploited the weak link for precision strikes on key figures.

Israel was able to track the movements of key Iranian officials and kill some of them during the 12-day war by monitoring the cell phones of their guards.

American newspaper The New York Times reported this on Saturday, August 30.

According to the NYT, on June 16, Iran's Supreme National Security Council met for an emergency meeting in a bunker under a mountainside in Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior officials went there without cell phones for security reasons.

"Despite all precautions, after the meeting began, Israeli planes dropped six bombs on the bunker, targeting the entrance and exit doors. Amazingly, no one in the bunker was killed. When the leaders later emerged from the bunker, they saw the bodies of several guards killed by the blasts," the journalists added.

Afterward, Iranian officials discovered a "devastating gap" in the security system: the Israeli military learned of the meeting location by hacking into the phones of the guards who had accompanied the Iranian leaders and were waiting outside.

NYT clarifies: it had not previously been reported that Israel had tracked the guards.

Israeli military intelligence was able to track Iranian nuclear physicists and military leaders through the guards' careless use of cell phones, NYT interlocutors report. This allowed the Israeli Air Force to launch missile and bomb strikes against targets during the first week of June.

"We know that high-ranking officials and commanders [of Iran] did not carry phones with them, but their guards and drivers took their phones with them, they did not take the precautions seriously, and that's how most of them were tracked," said Sassan Karimi, a political analyst and lecturer at Tehran University.

After the conflict, Iran intensified its search for agents it suspects of spying for Israel. Earlier this month, nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi was executed, and dozens of military, intelligence and government officials have been arrested or placed under house arrest.

NYT adds that Israel has been tracking senior Iranian nuclear scientists since late 2022. According to Israeli officials, the possibility of removing them was considered last October, but was postponed to avoid a conflict with the administration of then-U.S. President Joe Biden. Israel's "decapitation team" subsequently reduced the list of potential targets from 400 to 100, and then focused on the 13 scientists Iran said it had killed.

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail [email protected]